TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Agus Rahardjo said that the anti-graft commission received a report saying that a pharmaceutical company had transferred Rp800 billion (US$61.5 million) to doctors over the last three years.

“I retrieved the data from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK),” Agus said at the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministry’s office on Thursday, September 15, 2016.
He added that the finding could not be used to generalize the actual condition of the pharmacy industry.

“It’s one of pharmaceutical companies in Indonesia. It’s not that big, since there are others,” he explained.

Agus revealed that the company’s expense reflected the huge amount of money spent for healthcare services. Based on a research conducted by the KPK, Indonesia’s expenses for healthcare services is accounted for 40 percent of the country’s total expenses, which are higher than those in other countries, such as Japan and Germany.

His statement was in line with Tempo magazine’s investigation into a graft allegation involving doctors and pharmaceutical companies. The investigation, conducted in 2015, revealed that the transaction value for medicines reached Rp69 trillion (US$5.3 billion).

Tempo received testimonials from sources, saying that pharmaceutical companies had bribed doctors to put their products in prescriptions for patients. An article published by Tempo revealed that as many as 151 hospitals and clinics allegedly received billions from pharmaceutical companies in Sidoarjo, East Java.

MUHAMAD RIZKI